The present Executive Summary concerns the Reflexive Report produced by the Master’s degree in Education Sciences – Social Pedagogy specialty – of the Faculty of Education and Psychology of the Portuguese Catholic University (FEP-UCP). The present document concerns the experiences considered the most relevant in a professional development perspective, with a special focus in the period between 2001 and 2012, and anchored in a critical reflection over our own activities while socioeducational technicians with pedagogical coordination responsibilities. Following an academic path initiated with the frequency of the curricular program of the Master’s in Educational Sciences – Social Pedagogy specialty – of the FEP-UCP (concluded in 2006), in terms of conceptual and methodological approach we will draw from the theoretical literature of this disciplinary area, trying to set the challenges of the reflection-action within the scope of the socio-pedagogical rationale. As an educational science which frames socio-educational praxis in its plural dimensions, Social Pedagogy provides us with extra valuable theoretical tools when it comes to seek meanings for socio-educational reality, valuing reflection schemes conducting to practical knowledge. The Report initiates with a global introduction, being later structured into two fundamental parts. The first part concerns the main stages of our professional path, valued as an open one. These stages correspond to the initial training, to the entrance in professional life and, at last, the coordination and management of social and community projects. Our first professional experience in schooling (teaching in Basic and High schools) lead us to come to terms with themes regarding youth living practices in present day society, but it was mainly with the entrance in the social work profession that we confronted ourselves with contexts of human frailty and with the phenomena – both visible and unseen – of social exclusion. This process of obtaining professional conscience later converges to the activity of project coordination and management presently being conducted. In this sense, the second part of the Report centres especially in this last stage of our professional path, trying to put into evidence the challenges presented to us while stimulating socio-pedagogical initiatives and while coordinating multi-professional teams and networks of social actors. To perform socio-pedagogical activities in network require an open and cooperating mind, and a behaviour framed by highly ethical professional and social values. Ethical questions thus play a key-role in our reflection, considering that they cross through all the socio-educational intervention dimensions, starting with the skills of technicians themselves. The empirical universe that serves as reference to us concerns the Raiz Project, a social and community intervention project for the social promotion of children, youths and families from the social housing neighbourhoods of Ramalde and Campinas, in the parish of Ramalde, district of Porto. The Raiz Project in funded by Escolhas Program, a governmental program funding social intervention projects which promote the social inclusion of children and youths from vulnerable socio-economical contexts, valuing a model of territorial intervention conceived in a logic of partnership constitution, namely consortiums with local institutions. In this sense, the Raiz Project consortium is led by Nossa Senhora do Rosário College (CNSR), and integrated by the most relevant local institutions of the community of Ramalde, namely the Ramalde Parish Council, the Viso Schools Cluster, the Parish of Ramalde, the Solidarity and Social Action Association of Ramalde, the International Catholic Association of the Feminine Youth, the Frei Gil Foundation in Porto and the Faculty of Education and Psychology of the Portuguese Catholic University, in Porto. This partnership with the FEP-UCP allowed us to, hand-in-hand with the function of technical director of Raiz Project – and, in that quality, beneficiary of academic socio-pedagogical supervision – progressively assume responsibilities as a permanent collaborator in the area of Social Pedagogy under the guidance of Professor Doctor Joaquim Azevedo and Professor Doctor Isabel Baptista, namely at the level of social mediation and of continuous formation projects for agents of socio-educational intervention. Work conducted amidst this academic participation (2005-2012) allowed for the clearance of specific socio-pedagogical skills which revealed themselves as being highly important for an increasingly qualified technical-professional intervention. As a matter of fact, our participation in the small team of Social Pedagogy of FEP-UCP provide us with extremely valuable inter-professional community experiences, which also allowed us to think and act together with fellow teachers, childhood educators, social educators, priests, socio-cultural animators, and social service technicians amidst others. This opportunity constitutes, in fact, a real formation-action challenge, as we highlight in the final considerations of this Report.
| Date of Award | 2012 |
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| Original language | Portuguese |
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| Awarding Institution | - Universidade Católica Portuguesa
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| Supervisor | Isabel Baptista (Supervisor) |
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